Development and Release

Super Smash Brothers was developed by Hal Laboratory, Inc. in 1998. The game was originally developed by Masahiro Sakurai and Satoru Iwata as a prototype called “Dragon King: The Fighting Game”, but it was changed when Sakurai prompted the change to Nintendo-based characters to provide some familiarity. After this was approved, Super Smash Brothers came into being.

Nintendo formally announced the title in 1998, but only for release in Japan. Nintendo of America was worried about the pugilist nature of the game and about how audiences would react to the franchise characters fighting with each other. To allay those worries, the game was altered for US release, with the fighting sounds for punches and kicks replaced by more cartoonish "bowling" sounds. At the same time, the Star Wars-like lightsaber hum present in the Japanese version was replaced by a more generic audio sample.

Although announced as a playable character early on, neither version featured Wario -- only a costume color scheme based on him. Through GameShark codes, two debug beta stages have been found in the game code, Kirby Beta Stage 1 and Kirby Beta Stage 2.

The game was released in Japan on January 21, 1999; in North America on April 26, 1999 and Australia soon after; and finally in Europe on November 19, 1999.